Day 18 - May 21 - Franklin, IN to Lieber State Recreation Area, IN - Two Old Guys Take On A Continent

May 21, 2023

Day 18 - May 21 - Franklin, IN to Lieber State Recreation Area, IN

The Land Ain’t Flat But My Tire Is

John’s Story

Overall our stay in Franklin was to me more relaxing than our rest day in Wheeling, maybe because we rode our bikes around town rather than walking. Perhaps that sounds odd for our rest day, but it’s the truth.

We had our first flat this morning. Mine. Luckily we still had our room keys, because I discovered it as we were packing up to go. I pulled the tube and went back up to the room to use the sink filled with water to find the leak. Repaired it. Reinstalled it. Looked great. Went back to the room to wash my hands. Came back down, and it was flat again, so I installed a new tube and we went on our way to Bob Evans for breakfast.

From the looks of the hole in the tube I think it failed where the rim tape crosses a spoke hole. There was no hole in the tire where the tube failed. I backed off the air pressure until I can install new rim tape. If it happened once it could happen again.

At Bob Evans there was a family sitting at the table next to us with two small children. The two kids were doppelgängers for my grandchildren Johnny and Haley. It was eerie how much they looked alike. Out of concern for privacy I did not take their picture. I don’t post pictures of my own grandchildren online.

We were soon our our way. It was a late start due to my flat and stopping for breakfast.

I think this llama was facing Tibet. I hated to break it to him that he wasn’t the right kind of lama. The L you say!

I took this picture for Johnny. He specifically requested through his mom that tractor pictures be in profile.

There were plenty more hills today, although most of them were fairly short.

I found this sign on the coffee shop in Martinsville to be quite appropriate to our endeavor.

It’s nice to think someone is watching out for us.

The primary exceptions to the “hills were short” statement were these three, which came one after another for a total climb of about 650’.

Another irresistible shot. This was the entire town of Lewisville, Indiana. Salute! (You have to old enough to have watched Hee Haw to understand.)

I had to take at least one flower picture today.

We were trying to decide if we had seen a Road Angel today, when the couple in the motor home parked next to us here at Lieber State Recreation Area walked over to see what we were doing. I had successfully executed a PCT bear hang to get my food off the ground and away from the raccoons tonight (they are apparently a problem here). Ed came back from the restroom and asked if we could hang his food from the same line (he left his tied around a tree somewhere last week when he was drying wet clothing). It was just too hard to lift that much weight on one thin line.

That’s about when Furman and Wilhelmina showed up. They are on their way from Winter Park, Florida to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico for the summer, where they have volunteered for the past nine years. They immediately volunteered to let us store our food tonight in one of the lockers on the side of their motor home. Problem solved (for the meantime, anyway)! For this kindness they are granted today's Road Angel Award!

Smokey, where have you been! I haven’t seen your commercials on TV for years.

Carol, I hate to tell you this, but we beat you to Alaska.

There has been a lot of fluff flying through the air the past several days. I’m supposing it is from poplar trees. I remember almost 30 years ago when we went on a 5-day canoe trip in the Boundary Waters in Minnesota there was so much in the air it looked like snow when it settled on the water. About twenty years ago I visited Moscow, Russia in the summer time. There were so many poplar trees shedding so much fluff that it filled basement window wells and was piled a foot deep in places on the streets. The Russians caIl it пух (pronounced pookh), meaning down, as from a goose. Random thoughts here.

I really wanted to wander off into a couple of other esoteric topics this evening, namely frost heave and the Jeffersonian Land Grid, but it’s late and I want to go to bed. I promise I’ll come back to these subjects.😁

Ed’s Story

Didn’t sleep in as late today as yesterday knowing we were hitting the road today. Got up, finished packing, and dragged the bags downstairs.

We had to wake the manager up to unlock the pool room so we could get our bikes. I actually thought we were hitting the road early to be at Bob Evans by 8:00;….them boom….John’s flat which I’m sure he talked all about.

Breakfast was blueberry pancakes with blueberry toppings and coffee. Way too much to eat.

Shortly after leaving Franklin we came upon an unusual site. A llama, a donkey, and a duck all together in the same yard. They were wandering about just being themselves.

Have you heard the one about the llama, the donkey, and the duck that went into a bar, I mean barn?

We continued riding on relatively flat roads. We had already shorn most of our cooler weather clothing as the temperature was warming up.

If you remember 2 days ago John talked about the giant rock he saw. Well all along the road we were riding on were rocks. In fact we saw his rock’s brother and its father. I would have liked to get closer but there were some dogs in the yard.

I anticipated we would be crossing more of these along the route, and look..another interstate and no construction.

We arrived in Martinsville after about 27 miles and found a coffee shop. The coffee was good as was the cinnamon crumb muffin. The waitress trusted me to go out to the bike to get a dime to finish paying for my morning repast.

We met Carl and Tawnya there. Carl had found the Local Grind, the coffee shop here, about a week ago and thought Tawnya would like it. They live in Bargersville which is near Franklin. Carl is a private investigator; while Tawnya is a 1st grade teacher.

They were interested in our trip so we shared the journal information with them.

Some Kroger shopping after the coffee to get lunch and supper fixings. The next grocery store was 2 miles off route as we approached our campsite for the night.

We did not pass through any more towns before we reached camp. We did run into 3 longer steep hills we had to navigate over. We had lunch on the road after the 3rd and last hill.

After this we pretty much had clear sailing for the last 20 miles. We rode a short bit on US 231 and was glad it was short due to the amount of traffic on it.

We are staying at the Lieber State Recreation Area Sunny Acres campground with no electric. The girl at the main entrance wanted to charge us $7.00 per bike for an entry fee. I told the last state park charged us $2.00 as we were on bikes. She looked at the computer and then told us to enter with no charge.

There is no internet signal for the phone so the journal will get out late.

Monday’s ride takes us through Terre Haute, out of Indiana, to spend the night at the KOA in Casey, Illinois. Casey is famous for being the home of the world’s largest of many things, but that is for tomorrow’s journal. The ride is 73 miles with 2200 ft of climbing.

Until then, happy biking!

Today's ride: 61 miles (98 km)
Total: 3,184 miles (5,124 km)

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Rebecca ChimahuskyThat's some good negotiating skills--down to 0 from $7 per bike! Not mentioned: Terre Haute is home of federal penitentiary. Don't pick up anyone wearing an orange jumpsuit...
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1 year ago